Love Me (Normani)

Chapter 33

"Hey, is Lauren upstairs?" Normani asked Taylor when she opened the door. "Yeah." "Thanks." Normani jogged up the stairs and knocked on Lauren's door. "Come in!" Lauren shouted out shakily. "Laur?" Normani started puzzled by her tone of voice. "What's wrong?" She asked gently, wrapping an arm around her back and pulling her into her body. "Why are you shaking? What happened?" Lauren took a deep breath and covered her face for a second, brushing her hair back. "Okay.." she breathed. "I have to tell you something." Normani tried to meet her green eyes but Lauren was making it extremely difficult. "What is it?" Lauren bit down on her trembling bottom lip, whispering her words. "What was that?" Normani asked. "I didn't hear you." Lauren took another breath and met her best friend's eyes. "I'm gay, Mani." Normani's face was neutral, scaring Lauren out of her wits until a small smile made its way to her face. Normani may have been smiling, but Lauren was crying. "Hey, woah what's wrong? Why're you crying?" Normani rubbed the girl's shoulder warmly. "A-Are you okay with it?" "Wha-Of course I'm okay with it! Lauren, I'm literally dating a girl myself. Of all the people that could judge you, I'm definitely not one of them." Normani chuckled. Lauren whimpered and buried her head in her hands. "Come here baby." The dark skinned girl pouted, pulling Lauren into her arms. "It's okay. I'm absolutely fine with it. You didn't need to work yourself up like this." Lauren sniffled and buried her face in Normani's neck. "I honestly kinda knew anyway. Plus the way that you reacted at lunch yesterday gave me some suspicion." Normani said. "What about Camz? What if I'm outed? I'm not ready yet! What if my parents find out? What if they don't approve of me?" Normani kissed the girl's temple to soothe her. "Okay breathe, listen to me." Lauren looked up at Normani with both fear and tears in her eyes. "I'm sure Camila will be okay with it. She's fine with Dinah and I, right? I'm sure she'll accept you. You're still the same Lauren you always have been." "And my parents?" "I don't think it'll be a problem." Normani shrugged. "Just take it as it comes, you don't need to come out right now. You can do it whenever you're ready, okay?" Lauren took a deep breath and hugged Normani tightly. "Thank you." The Cuban squeezed her tightly. "I love you so much." Normani immediately hugged her best friend back. "I love you too Lauren, always." Lauren sighed with relief and nuzzled her head into Normani's neck. "You okay Lo?" Normani asked gently, stroking her raven hair softly. "I don't know." Lauren admitted shyly. "Listen, we have to leave for school now. But I'll be with you all day, we share all our classes today." "Fuck, what do I tell Camila?" "You don't have to tell her today." Normani rubbed her arm reassuringly. "You don't have to tell everybody you're gay on the same day. You can tell people in your own time. Don't worry so much Lauren. It's gonna be okay." Normani kissed her cheek and took her hand, intertwining their fingers. Lauren picked up her worn school bag and held Normani's hand tightly on their way to school. "Did you eat breakfast today?" Lauren asked when she remembered Normani's situation. "Of course I did." Normani said. Not. "Good." Lauren walked in and saw Camila who asked where she'd gone the day previous. "I didn't feel well." She replied simply before walking to home room. "Uh..is she okay?" Camila asked Normani. "Mhm." Normani answered simply. She wasn't okay, and she knew that, but Camila didn't. "Okay, well I'll see you later.." "Bye." Normani said over her shoulder as she caught up with Lauren. "Dude wait up-oh." Lauren was shielding her face with her dark hair which meant she was either about to cry, or crying already. "Come in here." Normani wrapped an arm around her shoulders and walked her to the girl's bathroom. Normani checked all the cubicles and then stroked Lauren's hair out of her face. "It's just us in here." Lauren had tear tracks running down her pale cheeks, and she looked so insecure. Normani cupped Lauren's cheeks and wiped her tears away with the pads of her thumbs. "It's okay Lolo. No one knows anything. Austin wouldn't out you, he was just bluffing to Chris. It was an insult he pulled out of his ass." "That's not all I'm upset over." The Cuban said, meeting Normani's eyes. "What else is it?" "You." Normani frowned. "What do you mean? What about me?" "You lied. You didn't eat this morning." Normani swallowed thickly. "Are you really going to get help or were you just bullshitting Dinah and I?" "I-I haven't decided yet." Lauren scoffed and left her mouth open in disbelief. "You were totally bullshitting.." "No it's not like that!" Normani insisted, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "Well what is it like Normani? I just want you to get better. That's all." "And I want that too..I think." She said unsurely. "You need to be sure Mani. If you start your treatment half assed it won't mean anything, and the end result won't be any change. You'll fall back into bad habits again because you're not one hundred percent invested." Lauren explained.  "It's scary though Lauren, you must understand that!" Normani said with tears now streaming down her face. Lauren sighed and wiped Normani's eyes for her. "I know, but you need to figure out which is scarier, your eating disorder, or treatment." Normani swallowed thickly and stared at her best friend in thought. "See you in Chemistry. I need to get to homeroom, so do you." Lauren half smiled sadly and left the girl's bathroom. Definitely treatment. Normani groaned. Oh God. "Go away for just once would you??" The girl hissed aloud as she gripped the edge of the sink she stood by. Well what would you have in there? Let me tell you. Nothing. You'd have nothing. No Lauren, no Dinah, no Camila, no family, no friends. They'd all leave you. They'd get rid of me and I'm all you have. I can make you skinny, and that's what you really want isn't it? "I just want to be happy." Normani croaked. You want to be happy? Well being skinny will make you happy! That's your real goal, that's what you really want. Normani was breathing heavily and staring in the mirror at her reflection intently. Was the familiar voice right? It was. That was her goal in the beginning. And you're not there yet. You still have a way to go if you want to be skinny. I can give you what you want, Normani. "Okay, no treatment." She whispered to herself. Say it. Say you want to be skinny. Normani frowned. "I-I want to be skinny." Good. Now throw up. "N-now?" Right now. Normani's eyes went to the cubicle reflected in the mirror and she was drawn to it immediately, down on her knees before she knew it. Now run along to class you fatass. Normani sighed and rushed straight to Chemistry, since she'd long missed homeroom by now. "Where have you been?" Lauren asked when the girl got there. "Uh bathroom." "For that long?" Lauren questioned. "I felt sick." Lauren sighed. "You were sick. Weren't you?" Normani couldn't lie to the Cuban so she just lowered her head. Lauren got a tube of mints out her bag and gave Normani a peppermint. "Here. Don't let Miss Murphy see you though, you know what she can be like." "Thanks Laur." "Whatever." Lauren mumbled, entering the room now Normani was there. Normani and Lauren sat together, but Lauren was giving the melanin girl the cold shoulder. "Can you pass the red solution?" Normani asked hesitantly. Lauren blindly handed the girl the test tube as she wrote down some notes from the board. "I said the red one Lo, not the blue one." Lauren averted her eyes from her book to the test tube she was holding. It was the wrong solution. "Sorry." She said emotionlessly. "C'mon Laur.." "I'm trying to take notes." Lauren cut her off, but honestly she just wanted Normani to shut up. She didn't want to talk to her. "It wasn't a big deal." Normani said referring to her purging. "Are you fucking kidding me? It is a big deal Normani when you're supposed to be in recovery." Lauren said in a low voice. "I want to be skinny, that's all I want." "Okay one you are skinny, but a really unhealthy skinny. And two I thought you wanted to be happy!" "Keep it down over there girls!" Miss Murphy called out from the front before going back to helping the student she was working with. "Being skinny will make me happy." Normani said as she poured the two solutions together, as if their conversation was as casual as a "how are you?" But it certainly wasn't. "You are skinny, and you're not happy now, are you?" Normani glanced over at the green eyed girl and chewed on her bottom lip. "You know I'm right. That little voice in your head is messing with you, it's not true. It's just lying to you Normani, you're fucking perfect-well you were. Now you're really sick. You're anor-" "No! Don't you dare fucking say it." Normani warned her seriously. "I said keep it down!" Miss Murphy shouted at the two girls. "Sorry." Normani grumbled. "Unless you two are taking about the task in hand, I don't wait to hear another word escaping your lips." "This conversation is over. Let's just get on with this stupid experiment." Normani said as she wrote down the results from the mixing of the red and blue solutions of whatever the fuck the test tubes contained. "Fine." Lauren huffed, going back to her writing. Of course it wouldn't be as easy as she and Dinah both thought..after nearly 7 or maybe 8 months, they were virtually in the same position they had been all along. Lauren glanced over at Normani while she was still writing and her heart sank. Where did it all go so horribly wrong?